


killing hands

by brokenglass



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M, Mentions of Rape, Season 3, Sexual Abuse, Violence, sort of like the ward
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:23:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenglass/pseuds/brokenglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amongst us all there are monsters. Despite what they say, Carrie is not one of them.</p>
<p>She’s been alone in her ward with only a door separating her from the dead on the other side for months, and when a group of survivors manage to get inside her life is threatened.</p>
<p>But when one of them decides she’s not crazy, who else will?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. bloodstains

**Author's Note:**

> a Daryl/OFC story of slow progression. 
> 
> A quick summary, the group go to a psychiatric hospital but it's not safe, a patient is still alive. 
> 
> authors note: so I know I already started Variations, and I'm loving writing it so far, but when this little plot bunny struck me, I couldn't not write it. I wanted something that would progress slowly, and this is definitely it. It deals with touchy subjects like rape and abuse, so if you are sensitive to that please do not read if you don't want to. Thank you and I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Georgia x

 

  
1\. Bloodstains  
  
  
“It might be worth a shot, there’d be medicine and it could be secure” Hershel says, looking at Rick with reassuring eyes. There really were no other options, after the farm got hit by the herd and they fled, they were becoming more and more desperate to find somewhere to stay. Being on the road was far too dangerous, especially with Lori being heavily pregnant.

“Are you sure it’s this way Carol?” Hershel turns towards Carol before Rick can say anything.

“Yeah, I visited my sister sometimes, I remember the way” It doesn’t take Rick long to decide what they’re going to do, since admitting to everyone that he indeed did kill Shane and that no matter what happens, when you die you become a walker, group morale hadn’t exactly been through the roof. They set off in the direction of the Psychiatric Hospital Carol’s sister used to work at, and Rick prays to God that it isn’t overrun with walkers and that they can rest somewhere.  
  
//  
 _  
Her feet pound against the pavement as fast as they can and blood thrums in her ears with every step. The aching in her heart hopes she’s not too late, that he’s too drunk and passes out before he does any serious damage. She finally reaches her street, after what feels like years, and thunders towards the front door; fingers fumbling to open the door. The scream reaches her before she sees it; before she sees her little sister being tortured by unforgiving hands; by her own father. The livid heat takes over her body, anger prickling its way up from her feet and reaching the tips of her ears. She throws herself onto him, thrashing against his large frame. She’s tiny compared to him, but it doesn’t stop her from kicking and punching at him, no matter how large he is, he’s not touching Annie ever again. The young girl struggles to her feet, eyes wide with fear as her older sister claws at her father. The older girl manages to grab onto the vase by the fire place and with one tremendous swing, she manages to knock him out. His body crumples to the floor, small trickles of blood running down his forehead._

_She gulps for air to calm her burning lungs before untangling herself from her father’s limbs and scooping her little sister into her arms. She finds her other two sisters locked in the kitchen, and she quickly ushers them towards the basement. Their only safe haven, the only place he can’t reach them. She quickly tends to her younger sisters wounds, but it’s clear to her that the vile man has done more than bruise her skin._

_Once she’s tucked them into their makeshift beds, she sits against the door listening for any sounds of her father coming around. When she’s certain that no noise is coming from the house she quietly opens the basement hatch and slips out. Silent rage ricochets around her limbs and the trip to the kitchen only intensifies her anger, there’s beer cans strewn across the worktops and food everywhere. It doesn’t look like it had been cleaned last night, which it had. With a long breath, she pulls the kitchen knife from its block and feels the weight of it in her hand._

_With careful steps she goes into the living room, where her father is sitting in the chair, asleep with the television blaring. She makes no noise as she moves behind him. With a quick flick of her wrists, the nightmares she and her sisters have been enduring since their mother died are finally over._

Carrie jolts awake, the scene that's been in her head since the day it happened is still fresh in her mind. The bile rises in her throat and she pushes it down. She doesn't regret what she did not in the slightest, but she hasn’t seen her sisters since that night and she doesn’t even know if they’re alive anymore. Carrie thinks back to that night, when the neighbours called the police because her sister Jessy had followed her and screamed at the sight before her. They’d taken her to the police station first, and when she refused to talk, they threw her in this place.

Harlington Psychiatric Hospital is not a nice place, it wasn’t then and still isn’t now. They tried to tell her she had problems, they diagnosed her with all sorts of things like psychosis and schizophrenia. Of course, she wasn’t, and whenever they gave her pills she spat them out. It didn’t stop them doing the other stuff though.

When the dead first started to walk, she saw it on the television in the common room. When the nurses started getting sick, nobody came back for them. That was the worst thing, when the newsreaders were talking about evacuations and they were locked inside their own hell. Slowly but surely the others at the hospital started dropping with the disease. The only thing Carrie could do was lock herself inside her room; she’d snagged the food from the canteen and barricaded the door. There was no reason for her to leave, outside was much worse than inside according to the last news broadcast.

A noise snaps Carrie from her thoughts, it’s not a small noise, like one of the dead from the other side of the door; it was big. Like glass breaking, and voices? Carrie picks up the blade from the surgical scissors she swiped a month ago and has them ready at her side, it could just be the walkers finally getting through the barricade, but they don’t have voices. She feels the weight of the blade in her hand and tries not to let images mar her vision and listens carefully. The voices get louder and so do the footsteps and Carrie grips the scissors tighter. Her ripped and bloodstained hospital gown only just covers her behind, offering her little to no protection. She shuffles towards the noise, her bare feet growing cold from the tiled floor. Whatever is coming her way, she isn’t scared of it. She stopped being scared a long time ago, but she’s come this far, she can’t die now.

The door at the other end of her room starts to buckle and Carrie edges closer. When it gives way, she lunges forwards, but three men barrel towards her holding weapons; one with a gun, one with an axe and the other a crossbow.

She immediately drops the scissors to the floor and puts her hands up in the air in surrender, no matter how determined; she couldn’t take on three grown men with weapons.

“Seems like it’s just her, get the others and we’ll decide what to do about her” One of the men says, the dark skinned man wielding an axe nods and goes back through the busted door. Neither of the other two men faulter; staring her straight in the eye as they hold their weapons steady. One false move and she could be dead within a second, much like years ago. Within a couple of minutes, there are others rounding the door. Women, men and children. They all stare at her as they move behind the two men for safety, like she’s somehow going to jump up and kill them all.

“Are you alone in here?” The man with the gun asks, using it to point around her room. Carrie nods as the second man with the crossbow moves beside her and points it directly at her head. He kicks the scissors away from her and they hit the wall with a clang.

“You’re telling me you’ve survived on your own in here?” He asks, lowering his gun a little.

“Yeah” Carrie’s voice is horse, she hasn’t spoken for a while, and it’s a strange feeling.

“How long has it been just you?” An older man behind speaks up, stepping forward.

“When the outbreak hit, the nurses didn’t come back. Just left without us, after that every other patient started getting sick and dropping like flies. Another girl and I managed to grab a load of stuff and we locked ourselves in here. She went a month or two ago” Carrie’s voice cracks when she thinks about her only friend in here, taken away from her.

“What’s your name?”

“Carrie”

“What are you going to do Rick? She doesn’t seem like a threat” The older man speaks, and Carrie puts the name to the man standing with the gun pointed towards her.

“She might not be a threat, but she’s crazy” The southern drawl of the man with the crossbow cuts into her like knives, she can’t remember how many people had called her that. Mad, crazy, psychotic, monster. Labels, that’s all they were, and Carrie was none of them and she knew it.  
“I ain’t crazy”

“That’s what they all say” he says, cocking his eyebrow. Carrie decides she doesn’t like him much.

“Look at her Rick, she’s survived this long and she hasn’t given us a reason to kill her, so why do it? Give her an ultimatum. She goes by our rules and one false move and she’s dead, the girl ain’t done nothin’ give her a chance to prove herself” It’s the older man who pleads her case, and Carrie looks at him with a look she hasn’t given anyone for a long time. It’s a look of gratitude, he just saved her life and he doesn’t know a thing about her.

“You hear that? You do as we say, you don’t have a weapon until we say so and if you even think about bringing harm to my family I will kill you, got it?” Carrie nods and the weapons are pulled away from her.

“If you’re thinking of staying here, I don’t know how safe it is. Behind that door over there is a load of them things, there’s a breach in the back wall of the other room too. But there’s food over there, help yourself” Carrie motions towards where her bed is and where the food is stashed. Now that there are no weapons pointed at her, she looks around at the group of people. There’s a young boy with dark hair, and what looks like his heavily pregnant mother standing beside him. The older man who had spoken for her standing next to two young pretty girls, and there’s an Asian boy standing beside the dark haired girl. There’s an older woman too, as well as the three men who came in first. They all look a bit dishevelled, and offering them her food is the least she can do for them not killing her on the spot.

Carrie watches them prepare food and talk about what to do next, it’s clear that the man with the gun and the man with the crossbow are the leaders. She watches them from her bed, excluded from their circle.

“We’ll stay the night, and then move in the morning. I checked out what Carrie said, there’d be no way to clear this place without being swamped” Carrie learns that his name is Rick, and his wife, though they don’t show much affection, is the pregnant woman called Lori. The man with the crossbow is called Daryl and the older man is Hershel. His two daughters are Beth and Maggie, and the Asian guy Glenn is Maggie’s boyfriend. Carol is the older woman and T-Dog is the man with the axe, and the younger boy that keeps looking at her curiously is Rick and Lori’s son Carl.

“Someone get the poor girl some clothes, she can’t go on the road like that” Carrie looks up, and it’s Hershel once again.

“On the road?” Carrie questions.

“Of course, we ain’t leavin’ you here. If there’s anythin’ here that we can take, tell us now and we’ll get it in the mornin" Hershel says, pointing at her. Carrie swallows, for the first time in three years she'd be leaving, she wants to cry, but she's not crazy, and she hasn't cried for so long. 


	2. breathless

Daryl watches as the girl they found yesterday, Carrie, helps Hershel pack the rest of the food into a bag. He doesn’t understand why Hershel wants to keep her around, he knows it sounds horrible but isn’t that what would be best? They’re in a loony bin, and she’s a patient, there’s clearly a reason why she landed herself in here and they certainly don’t need that type of baggage with them.

But of course, Hershel was right. The girl hadn’t done anything wrong, she’d dropped those damn surgical scissors the moment they walked in, so if anything, she’s smart; and maybe not that hard on the eyes either. He likes to think that she’s the type of woman he’d settle down with, subtracting the crazy part. She’s small but has quite an athletic figure, and her hair is partly dreaded and that shit is hot. And he can’t deny that he hadn’t taken a peek at her ass when she’d been on her knees with his crossbow aimed at her head.

What was interesting though was that she hadn’t flinched or even pleaded for her life the whole time he and Rick had held her at gun point. She’d simply told them the deal and sat there, like she didn’t give a fuck. To the side of him, he see’s Beth standing over Carrie’s bed, her eyes locked on the wall in deep concentration.

“What are these, Carrie?” She asks, pointing to the lines scratched into the wall. There are loads of them, all in a row, like tally marks. Carrie looks up, her eyes scanning the wall before she sighs.

“The amount of days I’d been waiting for help. Thought someone was going to come in here and evacuate us at the start, the other patients and I had hope. I knew there’d be no help when there was only ten of us left, I carried it on though, helped me keep track of the time” Carrie explains, pulling her red t-shirt down. Beth had lent her some clothes, they looked the same size, but Carrie was slightly taller so the top kept riding up her stomach. It revealed a few scars across her skin and Daryl couldn’t help but think of his own and how similar they looked.

After packing everything they had gotten out last night and some of the medicine from the cabinet beside Carrie’s bed, Rick called the group in for a quick talk. Carrie stood off to the side though, the others couldn’t seem to look her in the eye, she knew why; she was crazy. That’s what they all thought, everyone except Hershel. She could tell he didn’t think like the others, he looked at her like everyone used to before the thing happened, before they locked her up and threw away the key.

Rick makes it clear that Carrie wasn’t to have a weapon until they know they can trust her, Hershel tries to reason with him, but Rick’s ward is final. The stand in a formation, Rick and Daryl at the front, Hershel, Carol, Carl, Beth and Maggie in the middle with T-Dog and Glenn covering the back, Carrie trudged along beside them as they made their way out of the hospital.

She didn’t know whether they thought she was crazy or just plain stupid. Carrie knew what Rick was doing, she didn’t have a weapon and she was at the back, she was basically bait and she didn’t like it one bit. She knew how many walkers were in this place, there had been so many patients at the time of the outbreak; she must have only killed a handful.

Carrie feels helpless, more helpless than the times when the nurses had to strap her to the bed to give her some meds. The door to the outside wall is in her view, and the realisation that she hasn’t been outdoors properly for months hits her. She craves the fresh air, but she doesn’t get her hopes up, she could be dead at any point; she has no weapon to defend herself with.

Daryl shoots a walker with his crossbow, the arrow hitting it right between the eyes. The door is close now; a few steps away from the front of the group, and Carrie can already smell the fresh air. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it until now. The hot air hits her skin as soon as Rick pushes the door open; it engulfs her, tingling her skin. She’s almost breathless; it felt better than anything had for a while. Even before the outbreak happened, Carrie wasn’t allowed outside a lot. It was a punishment for when they caught her not taking her medication, but Carrie hadn’t really minded back then, it meant she could keep away from the eyes of the others.

They break formation when they’re outside, the parking lot being clear. It brings back memories, the way the nurses dragged her kicking screaming in a straight jacket through the doors of the hospital, it was essentially the day her life ended. Carrie pushes the thought back and tunes back into what the others were saying.

“Who’s she going with?” The Asian guy, Glenn says pointing towards her. Carrie wants to roll her eyes, they’d all woken up in the morning and she hadn’t stabbed any of them to death, wasn’t that enough? It’s clear that it’s not when nobody volunteers.

“She can come with me, on the bike, probably more room that way” Daryl speaks up after a beat of silence. Rick shoots him a glance, thinking that Carrie can’t see it, but she does.

“Ok, well, we’ll drive back to where we were the other night. It had good cover and I’m pretty sure I saw some railway tracks there too, could lead somewhere” Rick says, thumbing towards the trees. He looks back to Daryl and then at Carrie, a warning clear in his eyes.

“Shout if there’s any trouble ok Daryl, don’t hesitate, do what you gotta’ do” Daryl frowns at Rick’s words but nods anyway. It infuriates Carrie, because he’s talking about her like she’s not even there and worse still, like she’s some rabid animal that needs to be put down if it causes a fuss. The others get in their respective cars and trucks but Daryl doesn’t get on the bike straight away, he watches one or two pull away before turning to Carrie.

“Here” He says pulling a hunting knife from his pelt and handing it to her. “It ain’t right that you don’t have anythin’ to defend yourself with. Jus’ don’t tell Rick I gave it ya’, alright? Keep it outta’ his sight an’ only use it if ya’ need to” Carrie looks at it before taking it, the weight feeling familiar in her hand, even though she hadn’t held something like this other than the scissors since that night.

“Thanks” She mumbles and watches him swing his leg over the motorcycle.

“You been on one’a these things before?”

“Yeah, had one myself. Just weren’t as nice” Carrie replies, mimicking his previous movements and swinging herself onto the back of the bike. She slips the knife into her jeans and grips the back of the motorcycle as Daryl guns at the handles to start the engine. It roars into life and Daryl pulls away from the hell hole Carrie has been stuck in for three years.

//

“Look at all this space, we haven’t had this much since we were back at the farm” Carol says happily, and her emotions are evident on her face. But Carrie can’t help but feel slightly bitter, hadn’t she learned to appreciate space? She wasn’t the one who was locked up for hours on end. But she bites back those feelings, she doesn’t know what they’ve been through and she’s not one to judge.

While those with guns had picked off the walkers in the courtyard, Carrie had stayed behind the fence with the women and Carl and tried to distract the walkers with sound. She had tried desperately hard to ignore the fact that they were stood more than a meter away from her.

The light dims as they set up a fire in the middle of the grass and cook the birds Daryl had gotten from hunting. Rick walks around the perimeter, looking for breaches in the fence that could let the walkers get through and potentially kill them all. Carrie’s sitting too far away from the group to hear what any of them are saying.

She sits with her chin on her knees as she picks at the grass idly. She’s been watching Daryl keep watch from the overturned bus by the gates, and she can’t make up her mind why he offered to take her on his bike or why he gave her the knife. Hadn’t he called her crazy last night? He’d looked at her the same way all the others had, accept without the fear.

Carol had just taken some food up to him and to relieve him of his duty. He eats the food with Carol before jumping down from the bus. As he makes his way towards the group, he asks them something before whistling to get Carrie’s attention. She looks up and he curls his finger, beckoning her over. She doesn’t want to sit with them, not if they all think she’s some psycho that was going to kill them at any minute. But Daryl didn’t look like the type of person you disobeyed, so she pushes herself from the ground and stalks over to the others.

“Sit down and eat” he demands, thrusting the bowl of food into her hand. She’s about too, but the sight of Lori picking at the remainder of her food does something to her. It brings back memories, flashes of something she’d tried so hard to forget. Carrie looks at the food before holding out the food to Lori. The others sit in silence and watch as Lori stares at the bowl like she’s never seen one before.

“W-what are you doing?” She asks, finally looking Carrie in the eye. Carrie smiles, like she hasn’t for a while and holds the bowl closer to her.

"You need it more than I do, trust me, please take it” After a moment, Lori takes the bowl and looks at Carrie with water in her eyes.

“Thank you, Carrie” Carrie gives her a curt nod before pushing herself from her knees and walking back to her previous sitting place. Daryl stares after her, completely perplexed.

He’d never seen someone do that before, give up their food to a stranger when they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. He glances at Hershel, who looks smug, and then back at Carrie who’s picking at the grass again and looking into the distance. He wants to go over there and ask what it was all about, but he doesn’t, instead, he watches her, knowing that there’s more to her than he first thought. Hershel knows it too, and gives Daryl a slight nod.


	3. asshole

“I’ll come” The others turn to look at Carrie, forgetting that she was there. This morning some of the others had cleared a cell block for them to stay in, and now Rick wanted to clear more of it to make it safe. So far, Daryl, Rick, T-Dog, Maggie, Glenn and Hershel are going, but Carrie wants to prove to them she doesn’t want to murder them all and she wants to help. 

“No” Rick says quickly, dismissing her and turning to the others. Anger stirs in her stomach, nobody has ever infuriated her as much as Rick does, besides her father of course, but that was different. He won’t even look at her, let alone stop to see whether she really is a threat. 

“Now hold up a second Rick, we could use all the manpower we have. She survived on her own for a long time, Carrie could be an asset” Hershel speaks up with a defiant shrug of his shoulders. Carrie offers him a small smile, noticing how he’s always quick to hold her ground, because she can’t really be bothered herself. 

“I have to admit, he’s right Rick. How do you know she’s worth keeping if we don’t know if she’s useful? Sounds harsh, but she needs to prove herself” Daryl chips in, remembering that she’d been selfless last night when she gave Lori her share of food. He knows she doesn’t want to kill them. 

“Say if we did take her, how do we know she can cope, that she can kill walkers?” Rick counters, making Carrie scoff internally. Could she kill walkers? Of course she could, she’d done worse, but he doesn’t know that. It’s what makes Rick so fearful of her, the unknown. 

“I killed plenty at the hospital” Carrie offers and Rick continues to stare at her, like he’s having an internal war with himself over what to do, finally, after what seems like minutes, he caves. 

“Fine, but you don’t get to carry a knife or gun. T-Dog, pass her the crowbar. If you make one wrong move and put the others in danger, there will be serious consequences. You hear me?” Carrie nods, gripping the crowbar that T-Dog hands to her with both of her hands. They head out of the cell block, and Carrie catches Daryl’s eyes. He nods at her; it’s a small understanding nod that tells Carrie it’ll be ok. She doesn’t believe it, but she’s grateful. 

//

Carrie pulls the crowbar out of the walkers head as they rest against the wall, they’d cleared most of the halls, but they’d somehow got separated from Hershel down the many twisting corridors. 

“We need to find Daddy, it’s not safe” Maggie says, the panic evident in her voice. Rick puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder. 

“We’ll find hi—’’ Rick’s words are cut off by the sound of a scream. Without hesitation, the six of them run towards the sound. They round the corner, and Maggie screams at the sight of her daddy lying on the floor with a walker taking a bite out of his leg. Rick shoots a bullet straight into its head, blood and brains splattering on the wall. If it wasn’t already bad enough, Carrie hears the sound of walkers not far away, and she looks up to see them stumbling around the corner. 

“Guys, we’ve got problems” Rick’s head snaps to where Carrie is looking and his face contorts with determination. 

“Glenn, grab his other arms. We’re getting out of here. Daryl takes the front, T-Dog and Carrie take the back” Glenn and Rick haul Hershel’s arms over their shoulders and instantly drag him back the way they came. 

“In here” Maggie shouts through her sobs, opening a set of double doors and holding them open for the others to come through. It’s a blur, walkers follow them and Carrie and T-Dog slam the doors behind them, and Carrie slips the crowbar through the handles while pushing against it to make sure it stays closed. Rick looks at the bleeding man in front of him, not believing that he’s bitten and thinks of only one way to try and save. 

“There’s only one way to keep him alive” Rick says, making his mind up and grabbing his knife. The first blow is hesitant, but the second is harder and much more determined. Carrie may not like him very much, but at this moment, watching him do something extremely hard in order to preserve someone’s life, she respects him. The floor is covered in blood when Rick administers the final blow, Hershel has blacked out from pain and probably the loss of blood. Something catches the corner of Carrie’s eye; five men are crouched behind some mesh at the other side of the room, watching everything. 

“Daryl” Carrie says, jerking her head towards the men. Daryl follows her line of sight and his eyes widen. 

“Rick duck” Rick does so, and Daryl swoops his crossbow up into the air, pointing it at the men. 

“Holy shit” One of them says, his eyes fixated on the commotion in front of them. 

//

“What are you doing here? Pretty little thing like you breakin’ into a prison, surely that ain’t right?” One of the men says, his eyes travelling up and down Carrie as the men follow them to their cell block. 

“If you touch her, I will kill you” Daryl says without turning around and looking at the man. Carrie’s skin prickles under the gaze of the man behind her. 

“Why, jealous?” he counters, picking up his speed to keep up with the group. Carrie turns on her heels with a smirk across her face. 

“He has more chance than you, asshole” She hears Daryl chuckle in front of her before they come to a screeching halt at their cell block. Carl quickly opens the bars letting Glenn, Rick and Maggie push Hershel into the block. Daryl, T-Dog and Carrie stay outside of the block, telling Carl to lock it up so Hershel can be given the treatment he needs. 

“Can’t you take him to a hospital or something?” One of them says, with the shoulder length dark hair. Rick comes up behind them, his eyes vacant and washed out. 

“There are no hospitals”


	4. explanation

“We took this prison, shed blood, it’s ours” Rick says defiantly, looking directly into the man they’d come to know as Tomas. Daryl has come to notice that he’s the leader of the group, always shouting his mouth off and trying to be a tough guy. Daryl disliked him the moment he saw him, but his comments towards Carrie set his anger alight, it sounded like something Merle would say.

“We were here first, our prison” Tomas says, his eyes wild and animalistic as he stares Rick down. Daryl grips his crossbow tighter, he wants nothing more than to put an arrow through his skull, and by the look on Carrie’s face, so does she. He noticed this morning that when she plunged the crowbar into a walker’s eye socket, a sort of indescribable look clouded her face. It wasn’t like she regretted it, or that she was scared of them, it was a bit like she remembered something.

“We’ll make a deal, we’ll help you clear a cell block in return for half of your food” Tomas lets his eyes flicker between the group standing in front of him, considering Rick’s proposal. His gaze lands on Carrie again and he eyes her up and down.

“Throw blondie in on that deal and consider it done” He says with a smirk, turning back to Rick. Carrie flinches, knowing that Rick probably doesn’t like her enough to say no.

"No. And I swear if you come anywhere near my people, I will kill you” Rick says, not missing a beat. Carrie’s heart rate settles, and suddenly feels better, knowing that Rick isn’t about to throw her to the wolves. Tomas turns without saying anything, indicating that Rick’s won this time. The other prisoners, Axel, Oscar, Big Tiny and Andrew follow him.

“Carrie, you can go back if you want. He’s a piece of work, you don’t have to be around him” Daryl says as Rick follows the prisoners, his eyes large and angry.

“Pft, nothing I can’t handle. I’m fine, I’m going to help” Carrie says, squinting to see Daryl in the sun. He nods, like he did earlier on, and they continue in silence. Carrie doesn’t like trusting people, not after everything, but she feels like Daryl has acknowledged her, even if Rick hasn’t.

The group moves over to another block on the opposite side to theirs.

“You have to get them in the head, only way these things die is if you get em’ in the head. Not the stomach or the legs, the head” Daryl says, enforcing his point by pointing at his head. The prisoners nod like bored school children not wanting to learn; thinking they already know everything they need to. A group of walkers rounds the corner slowly, and Rick holds his arm to stop the others from going any further.

"On the count of three; One, two th—’’ Before Rick can finish, the prisoners shout out and run towards the group of walkers hobbling towards them. Daryl sighs in frustration as they attack them, hitting them everywhere but the head, like he had told them to do. After a few minutes, they manage to kill them all and the rush of their first kills is evident on their faces.

"I said the head, don’t none of you listen?” Daryl says, pushing past them. They continue around the corridors in order to get to the block Rick is letting the prisoners have. Daryl watches Carrie as she manoeuvres herself, purposely avoiding Tomas. He can see her watching him closely, almost analysing him, like she’s worried that he’s going to strike at any moment. Daryl’s sort of got that idea too; he wouldn’t be bothered about sinking an arrow into his skull for no reason.

They come across another group of walkers, but this time Tomas and Andrew actually understand the head thing and aim for the brain.

“Hey, Big Tiny’s been bit” Axel shouts, pointing at the marks on the large mans shoulder. The group gathers around, staring at him.

“Guys, I’m fine. It’s just a scratch” He says, looking at his wounded shoulder.

“Can’t you help him? Do what you did for your man!” Andrew shouts angrily, looking at Rick who’s standing with his knife clutched in his hand. Rick shakes his head, looking at the large man sorrowfully.

"It’s in a difficult place, nothing can be done”

“Guys, I’m not going to turn into one of them, I’m fine!” Big Tiny shouts hastily. But Daryl knows what someone’s going to have to do eventually. But without warning, Tomas plunges forward, smashing the large man over the head and sending him crashing to the floor. Almost immediately he begins to strike his head until he’s sure that Big Tiny is dead. The group goes silent as Tomas lifts his head up, showing his wild face covered in specks of blood. Daryl’s eyes flicker to Carrie, who’s staring intently at the man before her, her knuckles turning white from clutching her crowbar. There’s that look on her face again, that flicker of remembrance that she gets when she kills walkers.

After moments of silence the group moves forward, the lingering brutality of Big Tiny’s death still heavy on their minds. The double doors leading to the cell block are closed, and the moans of walkers can be heard on the other side.

“Right, you, open just one of those doors. You hear me? Only one, otherwise we’ll be swamped” Tomas nods and inches towards the doors, pulling on the handle. The door doesn’t open on his first pull, or his second. In anger, Tomas pulls hard on the handles and both of the doors fly open.

“I said one!” Rick shouts angrily as the walkers spew into the room two or three at a time. The group spring into action, doing what they do best. Out of the corner of her eye, Carrie keeps track of Tomas. Something had been off about him from the very start, but seeing him kill Big Tiny like that had started alarm bells in her head.

"Well shit happens!” Tomas shouts back with a shrug of his shoulders. Carrie pulls her crowbar out of the walkers head and momentarily closes her eyes. The blood causes flashes of that night to come back, her blood soaked hands, the pungent metallic smell. She gathers herself quick enough to spear another one right through the eye socket.

She turns to her left and sees Tomas propel a walker towards Rick, causing him to stumble backwards with the thing on top of him as it scrambles to get a bite of him. Carrie’s crowbar is stuck in her victim’s skull and she doesn’t think before she pulls the knife Daryl gave her from her trousers and launches it at the walkers head. It hits it directly in the skull, killing it instantly. Rick’s eyes are wide as Daryl pulls the body from on top of Rick. He gives a quick nod to Carrie before turning to Tomas.

“It tried to bite me man” Tomas tries to explain before turning away to kill another walker. Carrie dislodges the crowbar from the walker’s skull and kills the last one that’s stumbling towards her. Silence falls over them as Rick and Tomas stare at each other.

"I swear, it tried to bite me man” Rick contemplates what Tomas said before swinging his knife down onto his head, killing him instantly. Carrie stares at the man who crumples to the floor and then looks up at Rick, the smell of blood hanging thick in the air.

//

Carrie looks up as Rick approaches her cell and her eyes immediately fall upon his bloodstained shirt.

“You were the one who threw that knife at the walker earlier on, weren’t you?” he asks in a quiet voice. Carrie waits a moment before nodding, knowing what he’s about to say.

“Where did you get it from?” Again, she’s quiet for a moment. She doesn’t want to rat Daryl out. He gave her that knife because he thought it was wrong she didn’t have one, but nobody he and her were meant to know.

“Daryl gave it me before we left the hospital” she says finally, knowing there was no other way to scoot around the truth. Rick looks down at the floor, sighing heavily.

“I didn’t say you could have a weapon. And though I’m thankful for what you did and for helping out. But that doesn’t mean I fully trust you yet, especially since you had a weapon that I didn’t know anything. Now I don’t know you like I know the rest of my people, you could have been just like Tomas or Andrew. I’m sure you’re not, but I can’t take that risk. From now on, you don’t have a weapon, and I’ll talk to Daryl to make sure he doesn’t try and give you anything else” Rick walks away and Carrie wants to scream after him, she saved his life and he still didn’t trust her. But what gets under her skin the most is that he compared her to Tomas. It riles her because she knows she probably is like him and Rick can see her, and that scares her the most.

After a while a quiet settles over the prison, and Carrie guesses that its night time and most of the group are asleep. She waits another few minutes before creeping from her cell and down the stairs. Luckily the bars aren’t locked and she slips through them without waking anyone up. When she gets outside, Carrie guesses that it’s around eleven at night, the moon is high in the sky and there’s a chill in the air. Leaving is the best option, it’s clear that Rick doesn’t want her there, and the others, aside from a few words from Daryl and Hershel, don’t make an effort to talk or include her in anything.

“And where do you think you’re goin’?” A gruff voice says in the darkness, making Carrie suddenly stop in her tracks. Daryl emerges from the door of the watch tower, his crossbow clutched in his hands. Carrie can just make him out in the darkness.

"Leaving” Carrie answers simply.

“I wouldn’t if I were you, it’s tough out there” Daryl supplies, moving closer to her.

"I’m not wanted here, I don’t want to be somewhere I’m not wanted. Even if everywhere else is full of dead people”

"Rick spoke to you, then”

"Yeah, he did. I didn’t want to grass on you or anything, but, I didn’t know what else to say. There was no way I could have gotten that knife any other way” Carrie explains, scrubbing some dried blood from her wrist.

"Look, I ain’t bothered about Rick calling me out on givin’ you the knife. You saved Rick’s life today, and you wouldn’ta’ been able to do that without the knife. You don’t need to leave just cus’ he don’t trust you. I know I called you crazy, but we found you in a loony bin, of course Id’a said that. But now, you owe me an explanation. You get this look on your face when you kill, and I wanna know why. Tell me what you’re about, and if I think you should leave, then I’ll tell ya’ to leave” He reopens the door to the watch tower, inviting her up without words. Carrie is still for a moment, contemplating whether he’s someone she can trust with what she’s done.

"If it’s any consolation, I got scars too”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what does everyone think? comments make me happy!:D


	5. devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has mentions of rape, abuse/murder and mental illness. if any of it offends you, please don't read. it's a warning just in case!
> 
> comments make me happy!

The two sit in silence for a while as Carrie works out whether she should tell Daryl what plagues her mind when she kills a walker.

“My face, maybe it’s just because I don’t like blood” Carrie says finally, crouching down in the corner of the tower. Daryl glances at her from under his eyes as he picks at his fingernails, picturing her face when she threw the knife at the walker on top of Rick earlier on.

“Because it’s not a look of disgust kid, it’s like you see something you don’t wanna see. I’ve seen the look before” Daryl says quietly, not meeting her eyes as he talks. Carrie shifts uncomfortably at his words, unable to understand how he knows this, how he gets it so easily.

“Where, where have you seen it before?”

“Myself. So I know it ain’t you being scared of blood, and before we left the hospital, I saw the scars on your stomach” He flinches at his own words, he’d just admitted to looking at her so easily, and instantly his cheeks flush pink slightly.

“The scars are like blurred lines, I can’t tell one from another anymore” Carrie says, resting her arms across her knees and tucking her chin against them. Images of her past, that night and the many nights afterwards distort her vision. Blood coats her hands; needles prick her bruised skin, pain, so much pain.

“It started when I was four, mom was pregnant again and I’d been a little jealous about the fact that I wasn’t going to be the only child anymore. My dad came into my bedroom about a month before mom gave birth. He told me I’d always be his favourite, that I was his special little girl. Then he raped me” Daryl looks up so quickly, he’s sure it could snap his neck. Carrie’s face is as hard as stone as she stares at the floor, an angry fire flickering in her eyes.

“It happened regularly, I didn’t know what it was until I saw something on the news about rape. I told my mom that he touched me and I didn’t like it. That’s when everything went wrong, if you could call it that. Mom tried to make sure my bedroom door was locked every night, and that I was never along with him. He must have guessed that I’d said something, because he kept hitting me and telling me I was a bad girl. He used to hurt my mom too, while she clutched my baby sister in her arms. That’s how we lived until I was twelve, and then mom became pregnant again. I’d stopped going to school mostly at that point, I wanted to stay with mom. She’d tell me stories about her successful family. I always asked where they were, she just said that she wasn’t like them and they didn’t care about her anymore” Carrie swallows the moisture in her throat before taking a quick glance at Daryl. He’s transfixed with her face, like a child hearing a fairytale.

“By now, dad was beating mom on a regular basis. There were so many bruises on her body she couldn’t even go outside. I’d tried calling the police once, but dad had a friend who was high up in the police, all of our cases got dropped. Nobody ever came to help. Seven years ago I had to help my mom give birth to twins in the living room; she wouldn’t go to hospital in case they decided to take the children from her. Seven years ago my mom died on the living room floor while I held my twin sisters in my hands” The air is sucked from Daryl’s lungs, an in-erasable image gluing itself into his mind, imprinting itself on his eye lids.

“That why you don’t like the blood?” He asks cautiously, sneaking a glance at her face. Carrie almost laughs before shaking her head.

“No, well, I can never erase the image of my hands soaked in her blood, but it’s not the main reason. I had to get the neighbours to call an ambulance, but before it came dad got home. We stayed at the hospital for two days until the girls were strong enough to come home. I raised them, Jesy helped even though she was only eight. She liked to tuck them into bed sometimes. After mom had died, none of her family even contacted us. No one came to the small funeral my dad bothered to put together. I was so full of anger at them, why didn’t they care? The anger I felt got taken out on my dad. He’d try and touch me more, tried to touch Jesy, because now mom was gone and there was no one to stop him. But I couldn’t let him do that, not when I was the only one who could protect Jesy and the twins” Daryl slides down the wall, mirroring Carrie’s position. He hopes that there’s a happy ending to the story, but fears the worst.

“When he touched me, I’d fight back. I’d kick and bite until I drew blood or he got so angry that he’d give up. He stopped touching me, knowing that he couldn’t just have what he wanted. I was fifteen the first time I saw him do it to Jesy. I’d told her to fight back, that he’d stop if she did. But Jesy couldn’t bring herself to do it; she was so scared of him. I hoped that one day he’d get so drunk it would kill him. I hated him. The final straw was when he touched Annie, she was four just like I was, and I was seventeen. I came home to find him and his mate, passing her around like she was a piece of meat. His mate scarpered as soon as I got there, worried that I’d call the police. But of course, my dad just laughed like he was fifteen and had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. I always thought that what happened two days after was out of my control, that I did it without thinking. But after a year, I realised that no, I did it because I wanted to” Carrie stops and outstretches her hands, inspecting them and the weird scars that litter her wrists and arms.

“In the hospital, the nurses used to threaten to cut them off. Used to hold me down with a razor to them until I promised to swallow my pills”

“Cut them off? Why would they want to cut your hands off?” Daryl asks, shocked and appalled, his eyes tracing every visible scar, imagining it in his head.

“I installed a panic button in the kitchen” Carrie says, ignoring the question like she didn’t hear it.

“All someone had to do was press it and an alarm went off on my watch. One day, when I was at work, the alarm went off. I raced home as quick as I could, when I got there I found dad raping Annie again. Every piece of anger inside of me blew up, I just attacked him. I hit him, kicked him, and then I knocked him out with a vase. The girls were locked in the kitchen so I took them down into the basement and cleaned Annie up. When they were asleep, I let myself out. I went into the kitchen and took out the biggest knife we had. Then I slit the bastard’s throat” Daryl stops breathing for a moment, but not out of fear or shock, out of relief. He feels like a child finally getting to the end of a story, where the bad guy is dead and everyone can live happily ever after. But he knows that it’s far from the end.

“What happened next? Why did you end up in the hospital?”

“I must have sat starring at him as he bled out, because it was light when Jesy started screaming. She must have called the police or got the neighbours, because the next thing I know I was being dragged out and thrown into the back of a police van. I went through weeks of questioning, ‘why did you do it?’, ‘he was your father!’ they kept asking me how I could do something like that. What could drive a seventeen year old to slit her father’s throat? How could she murder her parent? The detective told me he was a man of faith, so I asked him, “If the devil was stood beside you, would you kill him?” He told me yes, yes he would. So I told him that he had no right to question me why I did what I did. Because my father was worse than the devil and that God should thank me now that he’s gone” Carrie finally looks up, her eyes wet but no tears roll down her cheeks.

“They told me that I was crazy, that I was haunted by the demons inside of me. That it wasn’t me that killed my father. They called it dissociative identity disorder. There was two of me; apparently, the trauma had caused me to go insane in other words. So they locked me up in the loony bin, put my sisters into care. I thought that even though I was away from my sisters, that we would all be safe, even if I couldn’t be with them. I was so wrong; at least I wasn’t safe any way. But it didn’t matter anymore, my girls, they got three years of a normal life. Annie and Lucy managed to go Disneyland like they always wanted, and Jesy got to go to her first concert. All of the beatings and the anti-psychotics they injected into me, they were all worth it for those three girls to be happy and safe. At first, I thought I was a murderer. That they should cut off these killing hands, but then I realised I didn’t regret killing him. And I never will, not for one single second. He deserved to die; sometimes I think I should have made him suffer” The two are silent, as Carrie’s words hang in the air like a thick smoke. Daryl tries to process it, breathe it all in. Finally, after what seems like years, but is only seconds, Daryl speaks.

“What you did, it was the right thing. You ain’t a murderer. You did an unimaginable thing to keep your family safe. And do you know that shows? Not that you’re crazy or psychotic, it shows that you loved those girls more than life; that you were willing to sacrifice everything just to see them safe. How could anybody question what you did? Answer me one more question, if he walked through those gates alive right now, would you kill him again?”

“Every single time” Carrie says without hesitating. Daryl shuffles towards her so he’s sitting beside her.

“You ain’t leavin’” Daryl says quietly, resting his head against the wall.

“Rick would never let me stay if I told him what I just told you”

“Then don’t tell him. Rick’s just scared because he doesn’t know you yet, when he knows that I trust you, he’ll simmer down”

“Why do you trust me?” Carrie whispers questioningly, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

“Because if I was you, I’d have done the exact same thing, I know what it’s like to have the devil lay his hands on you”


	6. trust

The bright light filtering in from the windows of the watch tower drag Carrie from her sleep and she blinks away the ache from her eyes. It takes her a moment to realise that she’s not in her cell like last night, and she’s definitely not in her bed from the hospital. Instead, she’s leaning against a cold wall with her limbs tangled with someone else’s.

Carrie stops, body freezing as realisation floods into her mind. She’d told Daryl everything last night, bared her shit and more. And now, her legs are draped over his and his over hers; slouched against the cold concrete wall. He’s not awake yet, or doesn’t seem to be anyway, so Carrie carefully detaches herself slowly from the older man’s body and stands up; dusting herself off as she does so.

Carrie crosses the small space to stand against the window, looking at the small amount of the dead that has accumulated outside of the fence.

Carrie lets her eyes flicker back to the man in the corner, his scruffy hair and tattered clothes only enhancing his looks. Thoughts rally through her mind like a tennis ball going back and forth, her words from last night still fresh on her lips like a the first frost of the season. She hadn’t spoken about that night in a long time, not since the interview like she’d mentioned. She feels bare and vulnerable now her past has managed to catch up with her once again. There was something in Daryl's eyes that caused everything to come spilling out, more like a story rather than a confession. She probably should have left last night, she shouldn't have let Daryl lead her up into the watch tower, should've just kept on walking.

 

Rick will never let her stay now, if Daryl doesn't stick to his word and keep quiet, Rick will throw her out before he's even heard half of the story. There's something about Rick that Carrie can't seem to fathom out. Why hasn't he killed her yet? She knows he's thought about it, yet he hasn't. It would be easy, he could get her on her own and then she would be gone, much like her father. But then there's his eyes, they're familiar to Carrie but she can't quite place why. Apparently Rick was a sheriff before this all happened, maybe he'd been to the house one of the days she'd called them. But she doubts she'd forget the face of someone who refused her beaten mother help.

And so, as two more days pass, each night Daryl and Carrie take watch in the tower. Each night they reveal a little bit more of themselves, Daryl talks about his brother and Carrie talks about the hospital.

"How did you get the track marks on your legs?" Daryl asks one night, remembering the large assortment of what looked like syringe marks scattering her legs.

"When I was first sent to the hospital, I was put on anti-psychotics. They were pills to start with, and they trusted me enough that I'd swallow them on my own. I never did, just hid them in the roof of my mouth then chucked them away when I was on my own. I got found out in the end, so they started injecting me with it. Had to hold me down, they look like track marks because of how hard they stabbed the fucking needle in" Carrie says, closing her eyes and remembering Burt, the rather large nurse who resembled her father strapping her hands into the restraints and jamming the needle into her leg. She hopes he got bit by one of those things and died a slow painful death.

"My brother used to hold me down. Use to hold me in cold water an’ shit to toughen me up”

"Think he’s still out there?”

“I dunno, sometimes I think that he could be. Nobody can kill Merle but Merle, but losin’ that much blood? Cut his own damn hand off, who’d survive that?” Their conversations go on throughout the night. And Carrie doesn’t mind telling him her thoughts or the gory details of her life, because for some reason she trusts him like she’s trusted no other before. The watch tower becomes their domain, where the secrets are spilled, where the secrets stay. Each night the two fall asleep pressed against each other, and wake up each morning in a tangle of limbs. Either one of them will wake up and untangle themselves before the other wakes up, and neither of them will say anything.

//

"Carrie, we’re going to get Hershel standing up, care to join us?” Lori says from the doorway to Carrie’s cell. Carrie looks up at her and gives her a small smile before nodding. The relief that had washed over all of them when Hershel had woken up was like a tidal wave. There’d been a worry among them all that he wouldn’t make it, Maggie had convinced herself that these were his last days. But somehow, the old man had pulled through.

"He’s a tough one” Lori smiles as they approach the hell Hershel had been recovering in. Others are gathered with him, including Beth and Maggie his daughters and also Carol. The men were outside, killing some of the walkers outside of the fence. Someone had managed to find some crutches from somewhere in the infirmary, and Maggie had them in her hands ready for Hershel to use. He grips the bed post and manages to haul himself up and onto the crutches. A wave of happiness courses through Carrie, that even against the odds, he was back up on his feet; even if he only has one of them.

He makes it all the way outside, even challenging Carl to a race when he’s got enough energy. The men turn when they see him, and a moment of calm settles upon the prison. Rick smiles at Lori for the first time in a long time, and it’s almost like the cloud of despair has been blown away by a breath of hope. She catches Daryl looking at her, and his lips quirk up a little and he nods his head in her direction like that first time a few days ago.

Carrie lets her eyes flit over the group, and then to Hershel. It’s not hard to recognise that he saved her life, he’s pleaded her case more than once. She owes him a lot. The smile on her face fades away when she catches sight of Carl’s. He’s looking in the direction of the back gates, his eyes wide and alarmed. He turns almost instantly, panic stricken.

“Walkers!” He screams, turning once again and pulling his pistol from his pocket and firing at the large group of walkers stumbling towards them. It takes Carrie a moment to realise that she no weapon, nothing to help Carl shoot with. It’s pretty evident that not many of them do, and Carrie’s second thought is the pregnant woman standing next to her. Quickly, Carrie searches for a safer place for them. By now, Rick, Daryl, Glenn and T-Dog have caught wind of the situation and are hurtling towards them, Rick furiously calling out his wife’s name.

Carrie knows it’s going to take Rick and the others too long to get to them, they need to get out of the courtyard now. “Lori, in here!” Carrie shouts, opening a gate leading into the prison. Lori doesn’t hesitate to grab Carl and drag him with her through the gate that Carrie is holding open. Maggie slips through too, but Carrie holds it open a beat longer in case there’s anyone else. There isn’t, Beth has managed to get Hershel to another gate and Carol has slipped off somewhere else. She closes the gate and trundles after Maggie, Carl and Lori. Inside may be safer than outside, but it’s risky. Carl’s the only one with a weapon, everything could go horribly wrong.

When Carrie catches up to them, Maggie is leading them through the corridors, though she has no clue where she’s going. It’s a completely different part of the prison to where they’ve been staying and it’s like a maze. Before long, a loud alarm starts to sound; it’s like a panic alarm and it makes all four of them stop dead in their tracks. Before any of them can comment though, Lori’s face contorts in pain and she grabs her bump, almost collapsing onto her knees. Maggie grabs her arms to steady her.

"What’s that noise?” Lori asks through laboured breaths and it sets a panic into Carrie’s bones. Flashes of her mother standing in the kitchen, clutching her stomach, breathing mirroring Lori’s.

"That doesn’t matter right now, we gotta’ get you to Carol or Daddy” Maggie says, urging Lori to carry on walking. Carl takes the lead, trying to guide them through the endless corridors. Lori cries out again, this time louder, and Carrie knows, just knows what’s going to happen next.

"Maggie we gotta’ hurry, she’s gonna have this baby any minute” Carrie says over Lori’s cries. Maggie nods, looking around for any sign of where they are, or how to get back.

“There’s no time. This baby’s coming now” Lori says, clutching at the wall and taking short breaths. Carl spots an open door leading to a room and quickly calls out to them. Maggie quickly ushers them inside and closes the door. Lori cries out again and clutches onto some chains hanging from the ceiling.

"Come on Lori, lay down and take off your pants” Maggie instructs. Carrie tries not to let memories flash before he, tries not to let Lori’s face morph into her mothers and gets down on the floor too.

“I don’t know what I’m doin’ Lori” Maggie warns, but Lori just shakes her head and cries out again.

“I need to push, I need to push now” She doesn’t wait for an answer, and Carrie pulls her head onto her lap as she pushes, crying out in pain again. This is what Carrie had been dreading since she’d met them all, this is the reason why she’d given Lori her food the first night at the prison. Lori needed strength if she was to get out of this alive.

“Lori stop pushing something’s wrong” Maggie shouts, pulling her hand into view. It’s covered in blood and Carrie’s stomach drops. Bloodstained hands, the image makes Carrie’s head spin. The room does somersaults and voices blur into each other.

"You won’t make it” She hears Maggie say, her lip trembling.

“You need to do it, my baby needs to make it”

"I can’t. I can’t do it” Maggie says again, shaking her head furiously.

"Maggie, please. This is what I want. You see my old C-Section scar? You need to cut along that” Lori takes hold of Carl’s hand and looks at him, tears welling her eyes.

"Carl, baby I don’t want you to be scared, okay? This is what I want. This is right. Now, you take care of your Daddy for me, alright? And your little brother or sister, you take care of them. You’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna beat this world, I know you will. You are smart, and you are strong, and you are so brave. And I love you. You gotta do what’s right, baby. You promise me you’ll always do what’s right? It’s so easy to do the wrong thing in this world. So if it feels wrong, don’t do it, alright? If it feels easy, don’t do it. Don’t let the world screw you. You’re so good. My sweet boy. The best thing I ever did. I love you. I love you, my sweet, sweet boy, I love you.” She pulls Carl into her and holds him tightly.

“Lori, listen to me. You need to hold my hand when Maggie cuts, ok?” Carrie says, coming to her senses and pushing away the thoughts flooding her brain.

“No, Carrie I’ll hurt you” Lori says, shaking her head.

“Lori, trust me ok? You need to hold on, squeeze has tight as you can, ok?” As another wave of pain grips her, Lori nods and grips onto Carrie’s hand. She looks up, bracing herself for the pain.

“Goodnight, love.” Maggie takes a moment to look at the woman before her, then does what Lori told her to. Lori screams out instantly, and she does exactly what Carrie said. She grips onto Carrie’s hand as hard as she can, and Carrie feels her bones break under her grip. But she can’t feel it, all she can hear is Lori’s crying dying out as her mother’s gets louder and louder in her ears.

Lori’s cries soon stop, her grip on Carrie’s hand goes limp, and Maggie cradles the silent baby in her arms. She pats its back a few times, clearing its airways. It cries a moment or two later, causing Carrie to let go of Lori’s hand. She looks to Carl, who’s staring at his mother with a pain in his eyes that only Carrie knows. The pain in her hand is drowned out by the pain radiating from Carl.

“We have to go” Maggie says quietly. Carl immediately takes his shirt off and passes it to Maggie, who wraps the baby in it. But Carl doesn’t move any further, he stays planted to the floor looking at Lori.

“We can’t just leave her here, she’ll turn” Carl says as Maggie and Carrie pull themselves off the floor. Maggie takes a step forward, as if to do it herself, but Carl stops her.

“No, she’s my mom. I need to do it” He says, standing up and pulling his gun out. Maggie nods, and catches Carrie’s eyes. They both turn away, and head back up the stairs to check the corridors. A moment later, the gun shot sounds, and they look at each other with guilt and remorse seeping from their bodies. Carl joins them, his body stiff and rigid, and he pushes past them out into the corridor without a second thought for walkers.

“We’ll go back the way we came, the courtyard should be cleared now” Maggie says, her voice hoarse and filled with pain. Carrie leads the way, manoeuvring her way back through the corridors they’d just been through. They turn a corner, and the sound of walkers becomes loud and clear. They can’t turn back, they need to get out, or the baby won’t survive. This is the only way. Carl quickly pulls his gun back out, and starts to shoot at them as they come into site. After the third bullet is fired, the gun clicks with every trigger. Carl looks at it helplessly, no bullets left. Carrie looks around quickly, for anything that could get them out of this mess.  
Just in front of them, a cell has half of the door missing, the bars were being replaced, and large poles sit within in reach. She rushes to them and manages to grab one, the pain in her hand is excruciating; though she manages to swing it around, trapping the remaining walkers against the wall.

“Go, Maggie, Carl, go!” Carrie shouts, pushing the pole harder into the walker’s necks. Their hands grab at her, and she applies as much force as she can with one injured hand.

“We’re not going without you” Maggie shouts, the baby cradled against her chest.

“There’s no time Maggie, you need to get out now! Go, Maggie go!” Carrie screams, Maggie falters, taking one last look at the blonde girl before turning and running in the direction they came from before, with Carl hot on her heels.  
Carrie pushes the pole further into the walker’s necks, and they finally give in, blood spurting everywhere as their heads fall to the floor. Carrie drops the pole immediately, and falls to the floor, clutching at her injured hand. She knows she should get up, and run in the direction that Maggie and Carl went. But something stops her, she turns her head to the direction they’d just come from. Her eyes focus before the tears fall. There’s somebody at the end of the corridor, dressed in white.

“Mom?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, maybe I got a little emotional writing that... 
> 
> comments make me happy! c:


	7. loved

“Maybe the others are still inside—’’ Rick’s words a cut short with a sharp cry of baby. Daryl looks up instantly, the deadly silence falling over the group as his eyes catch Maggie shuffling through the gate with a baby cradled to her chest. It cries again and Maggie begins to sob, her bloodstained hands clutch at the small life in her arms and Carl follows slowly behind her; his eyes on the floor. The first thing he notices is that Lori is missing, the woman who should be holding her baby isn’t there and Daryl watches helplessly as Rick realises this too. 

“Where, where is she?” He stammers, stumbling towards Maggie who shakes her head as she continues to sob. The next thing that Daryl notices is that Carrie isn’t there either. He watches the gate they came out of, as Rick falls to the floor in hysterics, but nothing happens. Nobody comes out, not Lori, not Carol, not Carrie, not T-Dog. The loss hits him moments later; four of their members are gone, and he doesn’t understand how it all happened so fast. One minute there was this moment, where despite everything; it felt real, normal almost. Then, quicker than anyone could expect, it was gone. 

//

“Mom?” The woman in white doesn’t acknowledge Carrie at all, instead she turns the other way, and starts to walk down the corridor. Carrie blinks rapidly, hoping that this is all just a dream. How can her mother be here? She’s dead, has been for seven years now. Maybe I’m dead, Carrie thinks, but there are no wounds on her body, there’s blood, but again, it’s not her own. She pushes her hair out of her face, smearing blood on it in the process; then tries to stand up. She has to hold the wall to steady herself, Carrie’s legs shake as she starts to walk in the direction her mother had vanished in. 

Carrie stumbles a few times, and clutches onto the wall for support. Her legs give way a few times, sending her crashing to the floor on her knees. Her mother continues through the tombs, her feet are bare and all she’s wearing is a white gown, she’s not moving quickly but Carrie can’t seem to catch up. 

“Mom, mom please stop”! If her mother hears her, she doesn’t stop. She carries on walking, feet shuffling along the concrete floor, arms hanging limply against her sides. Her mother comes to a corner shortly after and only walks halfway around it before stopping. Slowly, she turns around, and only now Carrie can see her face for the first time. She still looks so young, she was young when she’d given birth to Carrie, very young indeed, but the years of abuse had visibly aged her. But now, whether she was real or just a figment of Carrie’s imagination, she looked pained. Her face was washed out, and beads of sweat beaded on her forehead. Carrie’s eyes travelled down her mother’s body, and the bile rose in her throat at the sight of the large red stain covering the bottom of the white gown. The blood seeped into the fabric, and ran down her bare legs. 

“No, please, not again” Carrie whimpered as a pool of blood formed on the floor. Her mother opened her mouth, her face crumpling together before she starts to scream. It’s loud and high pitched, full of pain, and it sends Carrie’s mind swirling. She covers her ears with her hands, but it doesn’t block out any of the sound. As she continues to scream, Carrie’s vision blurs and her legs become weak, sending her mother’s swirling away from her. 

/2 days later/

Daryl shoves the wooden cross into the ground with anger, one of four that are sitting beside him. It still hadn’t sunk in, that they were all dead. And what hurt the most, just a little bit more than losing a dear friend like Carol, even a little bit more than seeing an infant without its mother, was that he knew that Carrie had relived a nightmare before dying. Of course, he didn’t know her as well as he knew the other three, but after learning what she’d been through; he’d come to respect her. He hadn’t spoken to Maggie or Carl about what had happened yet, he wanted too, but everything was still raw. 

The baby girl was beautiful. He himself had given her the first feed, and looking at her made something hurt inside of him. If he’d felt like that about someone else’s baby, he hates to think what Carrie must have felt the night her sisters were born. 

When he shoves the last cross in, it’s Carrie’s, and his hands linger a minutes over the roughly carved letters of her name. 

“She saved us” Carl says, and Daryl turns to him, taking in his tired face. He looks at the crosses sadly then looks back up at Daryl. 

“We were on our way back out and a group of walkers came round the corner. My gun was out of bullets, she found and bar and trapped the walkers against the wall and told us to go. I thought she’d be behind us not long after...” Carl’s voice trails off as he looks back to the row of graves and he swallows before closing his eyes. 

“If Carrie hadn’t have done that, we wouldn’t have made it out” Carl finishes. Daryl bites his lip and puts his arm around the young boys shoulder. 

“She did a good thing kid, so did your mom. Remember them for the good things” He takes a quick look at the graves before leading Carl away from the graves and back through the prison gates. 

Later on, Daryl visits the cells of those who didn’t make it. Carol’s hits him the hardest, there’s a picture of Sophia on her pillow, the edges frayed and worn. The little girl is smiling and clutching the doll he’d found when looking for her. He walks straight past Carrie, it’s bare and he knows it, she had nothing left to her name but memories. 

//

“Carrie, Carrie, Carrie. How fine it is to see you weak once again” Carrie’s eyes are sticky and heavy and she pries them open, she doesn’t need to though, she knows that voice. 

“What’s the matter darling? Cat got your fucking tongue?” Carrie manages to open her eyes, and there he is, standing in the pool of blood, her grinning father. His gold chain hangs prominently around his neck, his funny crooked tooth showing through his grin. He walks slowly towards her, staring at her like he used to. 

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll kill you again” Carrie grits out, though her body is weak and she can’t seem to move. Her father laughs and continues towards her, hands shoved in his pockets. 

“What with dollface? You ain’t got a weapon this time. You ain’t got that big ass knife to protect you now sweetheart” He leers, kneeling down to her level. He reaches out a hands and strokes her face, his fingers trail the streaks of blood and Carrie grimaces under his touch. He then moves his hands to her legs and he clasps her knees. 

“I remember these legs” He says softly, gently stroking her knees with his thumbs. 

“They were so strong, much stronger than Jesy’s” Carrie’s blood boils at the mention of her sisters name, and she brings her hand up smack him around the face. She’s too slow though, and her father catches it in mid air. It’s her bad hand, he squeezes it and the pain shocks her body awake. He grabs her other and does the same. 

“I loved you Carrie, I loved you so fucking much, more than I loved your good for nothing mother. But you just wouldn’t love me back, would you? You just kept fighting me, then you betrayed me, you fucking killed me!” His large hands release hers and go to her face, he grips it tightly and the anger seeps through his fingers. 

“No one’s ever going to love you like I loved you, no one’s ever going to love you you’re mine!” He tries to pull her closer to him, but mustering up all of the strength in her body Carrie kicks his chest as hard as she can. The force sends him backwards but it doesn’t keep him down, he scrambles to his knees. He starts to snap his jaw, and that’s what snaps Carrie to her senses, this is not her father, this is a walker. The face of her father melts away and is replaced by a foul smelling inmate with rotting flesh. It snaps its way towards her, but Carrie manages to grab onto its face to stop its teeth from sinking into her flesh. She has no weapon, absolutely nothing but her bare hands. Carrie accepts that this is how she’s going to go, that she’s going to be ripped apart by a dead person and this is it. But she fights anyway, because it’s in her blood, in her DNA to go out fighting. She pushes his head away from her as hard as she can, the flesh on his neck begins to tear and blood starts to seep out. With one last energy consuming push, the neck gives way and bloods spills out all over Carrie, covering her. The head detaches from the body and the body falls to the floor, but the head still carries on snapping at her. Carrie throws it away from her with all of her might; it rolls and hits the wall, teeth still snapping away. 

Carrie looks down at herself, the blood that’s covering most of her clothes smells of death and her hand feels like it’s in a million pieces. But she can’t get rid her father’s leering face from her mind or the feeling of his hands on her knees. She can’t think of anything but him, the memory of him reverberates around her head, screaming at her, pounding at the walls of her mind. She pushes the dead body away from her, pushes herself up from the floor and starts to run. She runs away from the nightmares inside her head that she can’t shake off, they never leave; they always catch up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> head over to my tumblr www.flanduss.tumblr.com to ask questions and see edits of this story!


	8. long before

Finding Carol had been nothing short of a miracle. Daryl, Carl and Oscar had been walking through the tombs, hoping to find some breaches and get them sorted out; and after sending Carl and Oscar to another section, Daryl had come across that moving door. He’d assumed it was a walker but instead, to everyone’s amazement; it had been Carol. She was dehydrated and weak and in desperate need of food. Once she was fed and watered, she told the group about T-Dog’s heroics and how he threw himself into a group of walkers to get her out. After he’d found her went out to the graves and pulled her cross from the ground, he was of course relieved and overwhelmed with her safe return, but three others had still lost their lives and it wasn’t enough to fill the dull ache in his heart.

And now, as they’re preparing food and with Rick still walking in crazy town, he feels like he’s suffocating from all the loss; first Merle, then all the others that followed. He’s putting the food into bowls when Maggie comes up beside him and starts to help.

“Glenn and I are going to go on a run tomorrow, we need some more formula for the baby” she says quietly, keeping her eyes on the bowls of food in front of her. Daryl nods in agreement, he could tell them not to go, that it’d be safer if he went, but at the moment with Rick out of action, he knows he needs to be here if anything was to go wrong.

“I’m sorry about Carrie” this time, Maggie looks up at Daryl with grief ridden eyes. Daryl swallows and keeps his eyes on the bowl in his hand, his knuckles turning white from holding onto it so tight.

“Nothin’ to say sorry about, shit happens right”

“I ‘m sick of losin’ people. And we never gave her a chance, but you did. Thas’ why I’m sayin’ sorry. Cos’ you actually looked at her like a normal person and now she’s gone. She was a good person, she sacrificed herself for us and I ain’t never gonna’ be able to repay her” Maggie grabs the bowls and takes them over to the round table and gives them to the new people Carl had found earlier on, they were going to stay for a while but everyone was more than wary of them. Daryl follows her and lets her words sink in, she was right, nobody ever gave her a chance. Rick had still looked at her like she was a rabid animal and the others barely even looked at her. If he was honest, the only people who seemed affected by her disappearance were himself, Maggie and Carl. The others had simply given her cross a quick nod of gratitude, no final words like the others, quick and emotionless.

//

Carrie’s mouth felt like sandpaper and her body like lead. After running from the memory of her father, she’d fallen down somewhere in the tombs exhausted. She was now leant up against the cold wall, waiting for death to welcome her through its doors; there was no way she’d find her way out of here. Every now and then she’ll close her eyes and her father’s grinning face will reappear, forcing her to open her eyes again.

“Carrie sweetheart, what are doing sitting here?” Carrie’s eyes fluttered open slowly at the sound of her mother’s soft voice. Her mother is standing in front of her, but this time her face isn’t pained and she isn’t covered in blood. This time, she looks peaceful and is wearing a pretty yellow sundress that compliments her skin tone.

“You’re not real mom, it’s all in my head” Carrie replies, swallowing and trying to get moisture inter her mouth.

“Honey, I asked you a question” Her mother smiles lightly and places her hands on her hips, the same way she always did when Carrie avoided her questions. Carrie lets out a little laugh, it’s as much as she can manage before she opens her mouth to speak.

“Waiting” She says simply.

“Waiting for what, for one of those things to come by and eat you?” Carrie nods at her mother, whose smile drops and a sad looks crosses her face.

“I don’t want you to die this way Carrie; I don’t want you to get torn to pieces by some dead freaks. They’re dead Carrie, you’re not, you can escape this” Her mother takes another step towards her and cocks her head at her.

“I died long before they did, mom. Long before they started to walk among us, before the torture and the electrocutions, I died when you did” Carrie says, closing her eyes for a moment.

“I don’t want to be here without you, without the girls. You’re dead and you’re never coming back” She whimpers, opening her eyes again. Her mother is still there, and her lips curl at the corners the tiniest bit.

“Then live for me, sweetheart. You’re right, I can’t come back, but I’m always here. I always have been; I’ve seen you grow into a beautiful young woman who does everything in her power to look after the people she cares about. You raised my beautiful babies; you protected them like I could never protect you. And now you’re here, with these people who need you. They need the strength that you have and you are going to make it out of here alive and prove to those people out there that you are not crazy, that you are strong and you are brave. Those two men need you; those man out there. Both in different ways, but they need you all the same. So you’re going to get out of here, I’ll be with you all the way, it’s going to be hard, but you can do it; I know that you can. You can’t give up; this is not the end Carrie. You will grow old and have a family and all of this will end one day, one day you will be the woman I know you’re turning out to be. Survive Carrie, it’s in your blood, survive for me” Carrie’s mother kisses her cheek softly and then she’s gone. Like a puff of smoke in a breath of wind.

Carrie stares at the spot her mother stood for a while, then, summoning some inner strength she forces herself onto her knees. She takes a breather before standing up, her whole body aches and her head spins but she knows she must try to fulfil her mother’s wish. Even if she doesn’t make it, which she highly doubts she will, she will have at least tried. Each step is painful and she doesn’t cover ground very quickly, but slowly and surely, Carrie picks her way around the tombs in hopes to somehow find a way out.

//

Daryl shoves a spoonful of food into his mind and tried to pretend he didn’t just hear a girl’s voice inside of his head. It’s just the eight of them again; Rick is still trying to chase down his demons and no one knows whether he’s going to recover from this. He watches as Beth rocks the baby in her arms while feeding her a bottle. It’s a bittersweet moment, there’s this little bundle of hope, a new life that’s so beautiful and pure, yet she has no mother and seemingly no father and she’s growing up in a chaotic world.

He hears the same noise again, the sound of a girl’s voice and he’s sure it’s his mind playing tricks on him. He hasn’t slept much, maybe that’s it, sleeping in the tower on his own wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. Somehow, it felt like all the doors were open and a cold breeze constantly invaded his space. He knows it’s stupid though, she was only there for two days.

He’s about to shove another spoonful of food into his mouth, but this time they all hear it, a thump comes from the opening to the cell block. Daryl motions for everyone to sit still and be quiet; he pulls his hunting knife from trousers and holds it ready in his hand. He approaches the noise slowly, anticipating a walker to hurl itself around the corner; Daryl pulls the knife backwards; ready to send it flying into the brain. He almost lets go, but what turns the corner makes him drop the knife to the floor.

“Holy shit” He jumps over the chairs and rushes to Carrie, she drops to the floor in complete exhaustion. She’s covered in blood and her eyes are unfocused and glazed over. Maggie rushes over to them and helps Daryl to lift her from the floor. He takes her into his arms, he’s surprised how light she is; her body is limp in his arms and he can’t believe that she’s here. She’s somehow managed to survive for almost four days with nothing to eat and drink and no weapon. He quickly carries her over to an available cell and Hershel grabs his crutches and tries to follow them as quickly as he can. As he lays her down on the bed Carrie’s eyes flutter slightly and her lips part slightly.

“Don’t hurt them dad, don’t hurt my girls. Hurt me, I don’t care anymore” she whispers before her eyes roll into the back of her head and the exhaustion completely takes control of her. Hershel and Maggie quickly come into the cell and start to check her over for bites and injuries and all Daryl can do is stumble backwards into the wall and think about how even though she’s barely alive she’s still putting everyone else before herself; even if it is her own demons tormenting her.


End file.
